


Catch My Breath

by starkadder



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 18:18:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8220451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkadder/pseuds/starkadder
Summary: Walking in the windy uplands of Wales and finding themselves lost, Laura and Danny have the surprising fortune to be found by a strange, beautiful woman named Carmilla and invited to stay in her remote house on the heights. It may be a little unexpected, but there’s nothing untoward to be concerned about - well, except maybe for the half-heard voices crying warnings on the wind, the fluttering shadows in stray corners of the house, and the way Carmilla’s kisses really do take Laura’s breath away.





	1. A Scheme of Mist

Danny knew the landscape fairly well and had planned the route on her own, but to her mild annoyance Laura turned out to be able to pronounce the Welsh place names better. She had received a beaming reception from the woman who ran the youth hostel last night when describing their day. Mind you, beaming receptions were par for the course when hostel owners came face to face with five excitable feet of brightly coloured jumpers and bobble hats.

Yesterday had been a steep and scrambling day: up from Capel Curig and looping through the precipitous peaks around Tryfan. Danny had been in her element. Today was a change: a long way along the spine of a ridge north-east across Carnedd Dafydd, Carnedd Llewelyn and a half-dozen other subsidiary summits and valleys with names that Danny was forced to Anglicise while Laura skipped her way through the consonants with ease.

“She's coming in before long,” the hostel landlady said as they were leaving after breakfast. Danny nodded seriously. “Pob lwc i chi.” _Good luck_ – one of the six sentences of Welsh Danny did know.

Laura waited until they were out of earshot to ask, “Who's _she_?”

“The weather,” Danny said. “It's a she in Welsh, I think. Gendered noun, or something like that. Apparently we're going to have some unpleasant stuff before the end of the day.” She scanned the sky, which was light grey with a thick blanket of late October cloud but nothing more ominous. Somewhere high up were the circling specks of a pair of buzzards.

“Yuck,” said Laura, and then after a little further up the road, “I wonder if anyone asked her. She might not like being assigned female.”

“Better than being assigned inanimate in English,” said Danny, and Laura agreed to this. They crossed the bridge over the river as it flowed out of Llyn Ogwen and turned off onto the path climbing the shoulder of the ridge. This side was subsumed in a sea of heather and shrubs, and the path was broken by lumps of rock pushing through the thin soil.

Laura let out a whine of protest at the steepness. “Oh, come on,” Danny cajoled her. “It's just this one steep bit to get up onto the ridge and then the rest of the day is along the spine. You get like four peaks for the price of one!” She started upwards and enjoyed the mild pain of stretching yesterday's aches out of her legs. She was overly masochistic when it came to exertion, Laura always said.

The day was blustery but apart from the ceiling of cloud overhead the view was sharp even to the horizon. Once they had struggled up the stony shoulder of Yr Olwen and positioned themselves on the ridge, they could even see the sea ten miles off to the north. Moving towards them, the little fields of the thin coastal strip gave way to an ocean of rough grass sweeping upwards until the rocky peaks of the Carneddau broke though, scattered with shrubs and the occasional wind-stunted tree.

There was easier going now, high in the air along the spine. Danny felt her spirits rise with the rolling her her shoulders and tramping of her boots, and the conversation with Laura resumed now that they had caught their breath. They'd hardly seen each other this last half-term. Danny's time was so taken up at her school and Laura's work at the newspaper was no respecter of evenings or weekends. It pained her – of course Laura had her own life as well and couldn't be seeing Danny every time she had a break, but still.

They took an early lunch looking over the precipitous cliffs at Ysgolion Duon, where Laura nearly gave Danny a heart attack leaning over the shelving edge to spot the sources of the little streams crashing waterfalls on the rock below. The wind was beginning to blow stronger as they moved on, picking the narrow way between sharp slopes, to the high point of the day at the cairn surmounting Carnedd Llewelyn. Laura was disappointed to discover that they couldn't see the sea any more. She made a screwed-up face for a photo and Danny tried not to smile too much at it.

She set a faster pace now that the path was a gentle downhill walk and kept her eye firmly on the skies. Clouds were thickening. The hostel landlady had been right; she was coming in. Above them, the light grey of the morning had become a mottled darkness and though it was still early afternoon the light was getting poor. From each side the horizon advanced inwards.

Conversation should have been easier on the down-slope but instead they found themselves raising their voices over the stiffening wind. There was a cutting edge to it that had even Danny buttoning up extra layers. Laura was a mobile bundle of fleece. Raindrops fell, and then a sort of incessant horizontal drizzle buffeted around by the oncoming front. Visibility dropped as a wall of cloud circling in from the south caught up with them and threw the mountains into a stew of fog and chaotic water.

“How can it be foggy and windy at the same time?” wailed Laura. “That’s against nature!” She dragged her waterproof hood back over her head yet again.

“We’re in a low cloud,” shouted back Danny. “The wind just blows more and more of it in against us instead of clearing it away. Come on, we should get down off the ridge before we’re blown off it.”

“Can that happen?” asked Laura, fearful. Danny thought it best not to confirm that it could and instead opted for a waggle of her eyebrows that suggested it wasn’t quite as bad as all that.

She led the way down and to the left. The wind at their backs was lessened in the lee of the ridge, but the walking which before had been well-compacted earth and stone gave way to a tangle of wet, slippery grass punctuated by loose piles of shattered slate fragments. The difficulties of the ground meant they couldn't stay directly under the ridge, but had to diverge from it more and more to find a workable path. Danny found a stray boulder to put her back against and watched Laura stumble in behind. 

It was no quieter in the shelter of the boulder - not to mention its sharp edges - but conversation was at least possible huddled close together.

“What do we do? Do we wait for it to pass by?” Laura asked. She blew on her fingers and rubbed her hands together a few times.

“No telling when it’ll end,” said Danny, as she tried to unfold the map in a way that showed the area without the wind stealing it. A drop of water found its way through a crack in her collar and traced her spine downwards. “It’s three o’clock already, and there’s no reason why it couldn’t last until dark. We don’t want that. No, I think we head north, down the slope, and we’ll get down off the mountain the slow way.”

“Is that safe?”

“Should be fine,” Danny shrugged, and tapped a couple of blue lines in the mass of contours. “We’re not all that far off – we could see the sea already before the fog closed in, remember? Head north, hit one of the rivers, follow it down to Abergw- um”

“Abergwyngregyn,” Laura finished for her and smiled. “Sounds good. Let's go.”

* * *

The north side of the ridge was home to a collection of smaller peaks, round-topped but still craggy. They were joined by saddles and smaller slopes rolling down in different directions and enclosing a mess of little waterlogged depressions. Somewhere between them should have run the stream that would lead them to the coast. Somehow it did not happen.

“We’re lost,” Laura stated. Her nose had long since lost any life, and her hands were too damp with blowing rain to warm up even in her pockets.

“We’re not lost! We just – can’t find the stream.”

“By which you mean: we’re lost.”

Danny slapped the nearest available part of the overhang they crouched under. “Fine. We’re lost. Fuck it, all we need to do is go north and we’ll hit the coast. Even if we don’t know where on the coast.” She fished into her pocket and pulled out her compass. The needle pointed behind them, through the pile of rock.

“Isn’t that-” Laura began.

“-pretty sure it’s the way we just came from,” Danny finished for her. “Have we got that badly turned around?” She took a few steps out of the inadequate shelter of the jutting rock and tried to take stock. Laura pushed herself further back into the vague hollow.

There was not much to see. The cloud had enveloped them in a stifling fog, and boulders even twenty yards away were almost invisible. The rain was not as heavy as it had been, but the penetrating dampness of the air coated everything from rushes to the top of her head in a patina of water.

The wind was strong, and came in unpredictable gusts. Laura found herself listening to the textures of it for want of anything else to do. There was the immediate sound of her hood flapping next to her ears. Around her, the grass was thrown around at all angles and added its own ripping sound. There were the deep levels of the strong winds farther above them, piling the cloud in. And lilting in and out, the howls generated as air was dragged through gaps in the rock.

Laura followed behind Danny as they attempted the third plan of heading directly north. In the back of her mind was the tickling feeling of patience evaporating, but she tried to push it away. Now was not the time to get annoyed. Besides, Danny had been this way before, and in a dozen other mountain ranges from Ireland to Greece. She knew what she was doing, and Laura trusted her.

Admittedly things that been a bit awkward this last year. There had been their... sort-of relationship in the final year of university, and then the inevitable breakup. They had moved on – except that Danny was always just that bit too keen to meet her subsequent girlfriends, a bit too sympathetic when the relationships ended.

But then she was being unfair, wasn't she? Danny had hardly stayed single herself – there had even been something quite serious with Betty. The hot, irritating feeling in the pit of Laura's stomach when she saw their holidays photos from Malta was something she had tried to blot out ever since as being unworthy. And then Danny and Betty had split up, one year ago. She covered her ears to anyone asking whether she and Danny had ever considered-

She froze in the middle of her reverie. “Do you hear it?” Danny turned round to look questioningly at her. “Listen!” she urged again.

There was a voice, floating on the wind. It came and went with each gust, too far for words to be distinguished, but unmistakably crying out. Layered in with the howlings and roarings, someone was wailing in pain.

“Can you hear what she's saying?” asked Danny. Laura couldn't, but Danny was right about 'she'.

Laura cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hello!” she cried out. “Who's out there?”

The wind brought no clear reply, only the keening of the voice somewhere in the distance.

“Where are you? Are you lost?” shouted Danny, but the voice raised itself to a scream. More joined it, other voices shouting and crying and wailing. Laura still couldn't hear any words, but there were sobs in amongst the howls.

“I don't like this,” she said. “This is wrong. Danny, something's wrong. Go away!” she burst out to the invisible chorus, but the reply came in stiffened wind, colder than anything they'd yet suffered and strong enough to drive them back into the dubious shelter of the rock.

“What do you want?” she called out, and heard empty-throated sounds of despair in answer.

The next gust brought with it a shudder of rain and Laura shrank into Danny’s side, closing her eyes against the cold attack and wishing that something normal and comprehensible would happen.

“Well don’t you look like a couple of lost lambs.”

Laura opened her eyes. The woman standing before them was short, dressed in black, and wore no shoes. She stood a few feet away, having appeared suddenly with no sound of arrival preceding her words.

“Are – are you all right?” asked Danny, at the same time as Laura asked “Were you the person we heard just now?”

The woman cocked her head, dropping a loose black curl over her shoulder. “One at a time, cuties.” She wandered across and leaned down to peer into first Laura's eyes and then Danny's. “Hmm. Colourfully iced cupcake and a redhead Valkyrie. What are you doing here?”

“We're lost-” began Laura, and stopped. She was becoming aware that all around, without the slightest fuss, the wind was dying down and the rain petering out.

“That's obvious.” The woman approached and fingered Laura's jumper under her waterproof as if she were deciding on a purchase.

“We heard voices on the wind,” said Danny. “Did you hear them?”

The woman raised one of her eyebrows. She had the kind that raised well. “No,” she said finally. “I heard nothing. But then I've only just got here. I'm Carmilla, since you didn't ask.”

“Laura. This is Danny. Are you from round here?” asked Laura. Carmilla didn't really sound Welsh – but then her accent didn't seem to be anything else either. Certainly not English. Perhaps a hint of French, maybe something of Scandinavia.

“Been here for some years, cariad,” she said – all right, a touch of Welsh in amongst the other influences - “But not originally. I live on the other side of that.” She indicated a shadow in the fog that marked the nearest high point.

Danny held out her map. “Do you think you could show us how to get down?” she asked. “Just to get us oriented.”

Carmilla looked undecided for a moment, and then spread her arms with a wide smile. “Better than that. You two adorable things are coming home with me. I like new faces.”

* * *

The house squatted unhappily under an overhanging bluff of rough grey rock, slick with water but dull under the grey sky. It was made of the same stuff as the mountains, not smoothly cut but tightly and robustly built up into two main stories and a gabled attic. Short spurs of living rock on each side embraced it so that quite probably it could only be seen from the front approach. Danny felt somehow that the house was pulling back into the embrace of the mountain’s arms. Carmilla led the way between massive slabs of stone arranged in a vague avenue.

“This isn’t on the map,” Danny said. There were plenty of rocky crags in the packed contours but no buildings marked save the occasional piece of Gothic lettering indicating an antiquity – a cairn, a barrow, a standing stone.

“You’d be amazed what isn’t, Red,” drawled Carmilla. “We keep ourselves to ourselves here.”

“We?” asked Laura.

There was the briefest of pauses. “Me and the house,” Carmilla clarified.

Inside was scarcely warmer than outside, but at least it was dry and they were safe from any resurgence of the wind. Carmilla led them up a flight of narrowly shadowed stairs into the wider shadows of a landing, and thence into a room. Everything was dark in the late afternoon. The windows were small and let in the light grudgingly. There didn’t seem to be any electricity, but Carmilla lit and pumped up a kerosene lamp standing on a side table.

“Make yourselves at home.” She indicated the one creaky iron bedstead and musty pile of blankets. “Come down when you're dry and there'll be food.” She drifted out. Laura felt the hairs stand up on her neck as Carmilla passed by a little too close.

Danny divided the blankets and insisted that she would take the floor, a suggestion Laura nobly resisted for no more than three seconds. She busied herself upending her rucksack and pouring everything out on to the mattress, studiously not looking up as clothes previously worn by Danny flashed past the edges of her vision and the occasional end of a bare limb intruded.

Not only were the clothes Laura wore soaked, but the rain had got into her inadequate rucksack and several of the spare pieces were rather damper than they should be. Eventually she separated the few dry ones from the many wet ones and got changed into something suitably comfortable, if not exactly co-ordinated. She draped the others over the bed as best she could.

“Like it, Hollis,” commented Danny with a thumbs-up when she was ready. “The leg warmers really do set off the yoga pants.”

Laura made a face at her. “We don't all have your fancy quick-drying hiking gear and super-waterproof stuff. Besides, the warmers match my bra which proves I've made an effort.”

Danny involuntarily darted her eyes downwards and then blushed. “What do you think of Miss Pale and Interesting?” she asked after moment.

“She seems... nice!” Laura thought about it and conscientiously added, “Quite odd. And sort of sarcastic. But she did rescue us!”

“It doesn't strike you as – well, as a bit weird? The girl with no shoes out on the mountain in the rain? The house not on the map?”

“Oh, please. She has literally saved our skins. Not going to be complaining about her footwear. Or lack thereof. Come on, she mentioned food!”

* * *

Downstairs the house was simple. The front door opened straight into a wide hall holding a large heavy dining table. At one end beyond the table was a trio of high-backed armchairs clustering around a fireplace and an overlapping pile of rugs. At the other end of the room were a pair of doors leading presumably to the kitchen or storerooms. The staircase from the upper floor entered in the middle of the room opposite the front doors. Carmilla was curled up in one of the armchairs in front of the fire, her legs folded into the seat.

“Hey!” Laura waved. Carmilla stretched, and turned the stretch into a sort of wave in reply. She gestured the girls into the two remaining chairs. Laura took her place next to Carmilla, while Danny faced her across a low spindly table.

“Got you some dinner,” Carmilla said, and dragged across from the side of the hearth a blackened and battered frying pan. She pushed around the logs in the fireplace until it could balance roughly on top of them and rescued a bundle of waxed paper from its place under her chair. It turned out to contain rashers of bacon. A crocket lying on the pile of rugs gave up thick slices of bread that she tucked into the grate.

Dinner was therefore slightly charred, but nonetheless very welcome. Danny tried to maintain some reserve despite the satisfaction arising from her meal. Laura, however, was soon sitting perkily upright in her seat and looking very much at ease.

“I feel like we should be asking riddles,” she said. “Like in a fairy tale, all around the fire as the dark comes in.”

“Voiceless it cries,” quoted Danny, “wingless flutters, toothless bites, mouthless mutters.” She watched Laura squirm in her chair, torn between shouting out the long-memorized answer and letting Carmilla guess.

Carmilla didn’t answer at once, but Danny saw the firelight reflection in her eyes fix her. “A spirit,” she said eventually.

“Wind!” crowed Laura, released from her restrained eagerness. Danny inclined her head towards her.

“Same thing, in a way,” Carmilla murmured. Laura scoffed, but she persisted. “No, I mean it. Latin _spiritus_ , breath, wind and spirit. Greek _psyche_ , the same thing. Hebrew – I think – _ruach_ , which is wind or soul. Sanskrit _prana_ , which is the breath and the vital force. Same with _qi_.” She stretched cat-like. “People have always known that the wind is the breath of life. And not just our lives.”

Danny gently applauded Carmilla's reading. Laura frowned. “Why not in English?”

“Oh, but it is, cupcake. Inspire. Expire. Respire. And so on.” She half-closed her eyes and seemed to lapse into a reverie. “I like listening to the wind. It's comforting, to think of how unimportant we are in comparison. All the lives we've led, people we've been. Nothing to that long, slow breathing. Listen.”

The gale was back up and from somewhere in the distance came a faint whining carried by the gusts. Danny would have thought nothing of it had it not been for their experience in the open earlier.

“What _is_ that?” she asked. “That sound, the howling. We heard something earlier, almost like voices. Is it always like that up here? I've never found it so before.”

Carmilla settled down lower in her chair and waved a bare arm casually in the direction of the windows. “It's an odd spot here, Miss Ginger. The rocks have gaps for the wind to whistle through. And there's a lot of wind. Or,” she added with a glint in her eye, “maybe it's the Coraniaid.”

“The what?” said Laura.

“From the old stories,” said Carmilla. “They came from the East – nobody knew from where exactly. They could hear every voice that the wind touched and communicate with each other the same way. The Triads call them one of the Three Afflictions of the Island of Britain. Everything comes in threes in the Triads,” she added unnecessarily.

“What were the other two Afflictions?” Danny wondered.

“Oh, you know. The Gaels.” Danny felt Carmilla's eyes trace her red hair while she said this. “And the English, of course,” she said, throwing a glance at Laura.

“Of course,” Laura giggled.

“Feeling a bit nervous, Red?” smirked Carmilla. “Don't worry. I'll hold your hand up to bed.” Danny felt herself colour and tried to think of a way to change the subject.

Fortunately Carmilla did it for her. “Wine,” she stated firmly. It came out of a rack somewhere in the back shadows of the hall. She poured three generous glasses and crossed the hearth to hand the first to Danny, who flinched and shifted uncomfortably in her seat until she took a sip and the wine brought a smile to her face.

“Thanks,” she said to Carmilla. “Been a tense day.” Carmilla was pretty when she smiled, and Danny watched the firelight mark out the highlights of her face, and of Laura's more familiar prettiness.

The evening relaxed. Before long Laura was recounting the previous four days of walking, Carmilla was commenting on the bird life seen that summer, and Danny herself told some stories of a section of the Pennine Way she'd tackled over the Easter holidays.

“Why did you jump?” Laura asked later on, as she rearranged the pillows and tried to get comfortable. “I saw you. When she gave you the wine, you flinched.”

“Oh, just a bit of a shock,” murmured Danny from her pile of blankets. “Carmilla's hand. It was so cold.”


	2. Eyes Interpret Shadow

Night shaded slowly into morning. Laura woke first and left Danny curled up in her heap of blankets to go in search of the bathroom. The sky outside was so thick with clouds that the only light was a pale suffocating grey and the wind continued to shake the coarse grass outside. The mist was fading when she looked out of the window, though, and there was no rain.

The bathroom, when she found it, turned out to have the same atmosphere as the rest of the house: ramshackle and chilly, but pleasant enough in an old-fashioned way. The bath – there was no shower - was cast iron and porcelain on clawed feet, and the hot tap was optimistically named. There was a thick Afghan rug on the floorboards and instead of a sink, an enamel washbasin on a brass stand that she had to fill with a jug. The soap and shampoo were gently aromatic, damp moss and heather.

Carmilla was in the kitchen when she came down, sprawling in a high wooden chair with one leg thrown carelessly over the arm. She was draped in loose greys and soft greens and held a paperback.

“Morning cupcake,” she said, and yawned.

“Good morning.” Laura sat down on the other side of the table and considered the ways in which one could politely ask for as much breakfast as possible.

“You hungry?” Carmilla rearranged herself into a more upright position and put her book down. Laura nodded enthusiastically, and she rose.

“What are you reading?” Laura pulled the paperback across the table. “ _Three Sisters_. Chekhov. Bit early for something that heavy, isn’t it?”

“Can’t imagine a better time.” Carmilla found an onion and half a cabbage in one of the innumerable crooked cupboards, while an antique cold cabinet produced a plate of cooked meat on a chipped platter and a bowl of boiled potatoes. She started chopping and Laura was left to silently trace old burns and knife marks in the smooth-worn table under her hands.

“So what do you do all day?” she asked eventually. “Up here?”

A small smile appeared on the visible part of Carmilla’s face. “Do you always ask so many questions?”

“It’s a natural thing to ask!” protested Laura, flustered. “Just trying to make conversation.”

“Relax, tightly wound.” She opened the door to the range and threw a handful of charcoal in with a small scoop, before pulling down a great iron frying pan from its hanging place in the rafters. Laura watched the way her thin arm didn’t even wobble under the weight. She placed the pan on one hotplate, a kettle on the other, and stood back to let them heat up.

She turned back to Laura. “I read a lot,” she said slowly. “And I walk.”

“How often do you go down to a village?”

“Hardly. Only when there’s a need, which isn't often. There’s a farmer leaves us regular supplies in a sheepfold by Bera Fach.”

Laura frowned. “That’s… kind of unusual.”

“We have an arrangement.” She dropped a lump of butter in the frying pan and threw the onions in as soon as it started melting. “Had an arrangement a long time.”

Laura contemplated this as she watched Carmilla add the chopped potatoes, cabbage and meat. Soon the kitchen was filled with the sound of sizzling and the smell of frying onions and smoked mutton. Her hostess was a shut-in, obviously, and some kind of semi-feudal legacy allowed her to be so. But you met all sorts as a journalist and not all of them made you breakfast after rescuing you on the mountainside.

The kettle began to whistle and Carmilla heaped spoonfuls of tea into a large brown-glazed pot. She wore a silver pendant, Laura noticed, resting at the base of her neck - some kind of triple spiral. It suited her.

“Did you and your knight in high-tech thermalwear sleep well?”

“Yes thanks,” Laura said and then felt the need to add, “don't know how Danny found the floor, but the bed was good.”

Carmilla shuffled around the corner of the table and perched near Laura's place. “Chucked her out, did you?” she asked. Was there a hint in her voice? Laura wondered.

“Oh, no! She's just very- chivalrous. And we're not together! In case you were wondering. Not that it matters, but if you were.”

“Not that it matters,” Carmilla echoed, and the corners of her mouth softened. “Thought she was keeping a close watch on you last night.”

“Oh, that's just how Danny is, she looks out for people. Strange houses and all that.” She paused, and then carried on in a rush of self-correction. “Not that this house is strange! Just, you know, we haven't been here before and there might be strange people! Oh- no, you've been very good, I just meant- Like, what if- No, what I mean was- Oh crap, sorry.” She made a face.

Carmilla raised an eyebrow. “Do you plan your sentences before you say them, sweetheart? Relax, I understood.” She shifted a little closer and looked arch. “I'm aware I have an air of mystery.”

Laura giggled. “You've definitely got the 'mysterious beautiful woman wandering on a mountainside' look sewn up.”

“Oh, compliments on my beauty,” drawled Carmilla, and Laura felt the blood rushing to her cheeks. “You're not so shabby yourself, for a damsel in distress.”

Laura tried to look like she was confidently engaged in verbal sparring rather than just acutely conscious that the blood had not left her cheeks. “Come on, we were hardly in _that_ much distress! Besides,” she added, drawing herself up. “I'll have you know I'm a competent hard-nosed journalist, _thank_ you very much. I damsel... merely as a part-time thing. On holidays.”

“I see... well, that's very encouraging. Not sure I quite believe you about the hard nose, though.” She reached forward and tweaked the tip, sending Laura into a fit of giggles. She did had chilly fingers.

* * *

Danny padded down the stairs, hair stringy and damp from a rinse in the basin. In the indifferent light of morning the house's shadows had retreated but not disappeared. They folded themselves into corners instead and hid in the rafters between splintered beams.

Her sleep had been unsettled. Old houses creaked in the night - that was to be expected. But some of the creaking heard on the edge of dreams had been a little too regular, a little too persistent and accompanied a little too often by shuffling as of quiet footsteps. Perhaps Carmilla simply didn't sleep well. Her pallor hardly looked healthy, and her hand had been shockingly cold when she'd handed Danny the glass of wine on the previous night.

There was the sound of low conversation coming from the kitchen – Laura's voice, and Carmilla's. Danny pushed open the door. Carmilla was sitting on the table, close to Laura and swinging her legs. There was a smile on her face, and Laura was giggling at something she'd said.

“...explode, cupcake,” she finished, and then glanced up. “Morning, Red. You do scrub up well.”

“Oh, Danny!” Laura jolted as if her arrival was a surprise and made as if to get out of her seat before settling back. Danny patted her shoulder and greeted Carmilla, all the while trying to suppress the uncomfortable impression of having walked in on something.

“Breakfast is served.” Carmilla dropped quietly off the table and fetched plates down from a cupboard.

Danny ate her plate of fried meat and vegetables and watched Carmilla. There was – undeniably – something very odd about her, but the safe night and welcoming morning put the some oddities of the previous night away. This was not a horror story. Rather, here was an eccentric girl starved for company and not overly interested in a conventional life. Carmilla looked up at her, and Danny smiled encouragingly, Carmilla’s answering smile came slowly, but Danny felt it the more for that.

Much unlike Laura, in some ways. Laura was always quick to smile, quick to befriend. It was why Danny had fallen so hard for her so fast – faster than Laura had been ready for. And in truth, faster than Danny had been ready for herself. The easy surface of their friendship had concealed deep differences that needed time to turn into compatibility, and the speed of their – what to call it? – almost-relationship simply hadn’t allowed that time.

Laura’s attention had been absorbed entirely by the task of eating as fast as possible, so she only caught the gaze between Danny and Carmilla after it had gone on a few seconds.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, her mouth still full of mutton.

Carmilla only turned her gaze over to Laura, leaving Danny to shake her head and say ‘nothing’. She saw Laura frown, and a little pinkness rise to the surface of her cheeks.

“Are you packed, Laura?” Danny asked. “I reckon we could make it to the coast for a late lunch and then probably catch up with the planned route if we get a bus to Conwy.” Laura looked sharply at her. Something had gone mismatched somewhere.

“You should stay.” Carmilla didn’t look at either of them, but placed her hands together on the table and stretched. There was something shy in her movements. “Go tomorrow. You’re on holiday, after all.”

“Oh can we, Carm?” A smile broke out over Laura's face. “We can pick up the route further on, can't we Danny? Come on, how often do you make new friends in the middle of a mountainside?”

It was 'Carm' now, apparently. But despite that, she thanked Carmilla and rose. “Even so, I’m going to have a scout around this lump of rock. See if the sea’s visible again. You coming, Hollis?” She extended a hand to help her up, but Laura shook her head.

“No, I feel a bit tired out after yesterday. You go, I’ll stay and talk to Carm. If that’s okay,” she added, and Carmilla smiled widely.

“See you, Red,” she purred, and Danny left the breakfast table with a small but irritating blockage in her throat.

* * *

Danny ground the annoyance out under her boots. The rock summit under which the house lurked was not high, but the going was difficult and several times she had to put her hands to the bare face to scramble higher. The day was chill and the wind cutting, but it had dried out effectively from yesterday and the effort kept her warm. She zipped off the lower parts of her trousers, turning them into shorts, and went down to t-shirt.

She came back to herself, as she always did when walking. It had been this way in Greece last year after she broke up with Betty. Weeks of being tied up in exhaustingly reflexive social knots, words going back and forth, echoing each other – and then the freedom of exertion, and cold air that couldn’t chill her because of the heat rising in her body.

Her route up the summit went around and around in a spiral, following the path that water took to run off into the boggy ground below. She circled the block of grey rock and took the view. Now that the mist was being driven away, visibility was back. To the south and east was the ridge of the Carneddau they had been driven off yesterday. The smallest of specks on the north of Foel-fras suggested the first walkers were already starting out on their march south. To the west, moors and more moors, sinking slowly into tiny hemmed fields – but further than that was blotted out by haze. North the land fell away, but the sea was unseen.

She did another turn around the hill and came out onto the uneven crest. The air caught her and whipped her ponytail left and right. Up on the high ridge, the dots of walkers were gone again from view.

But there was something interesting – to the west, down on the featureless expanse of coarse grass cut through by peaty streams. Somebody was standing, a black-clad figure in such loose clothing that their form seemed to shudder and ripple without substance. Hardly hiking gear.

Danny strained her eyes to see closer, but one blink and the figure was gone. She started, then chided herself for the foolishness. Never make too much of things half-seen at a distance. She resumed taking the view.

It was possible, here, to see the way she and Laura would have to get down tomorrow. The criss-crossing and overlapping of bluffs and spurs from the little summits was complex enough to explain why they’d got lost, but it was all clear enough from up here. That was how they would begin next morning – climb up, sight the way from the hill to that cairn over there. Then, there was a big stone surmounting a mound (so many mounds and barrows in this place) that they should be able to sight, and walking towards it they’d hit the river as it plunged in a waterfall onto the lower and easier flank of the moor. The coast was two miles downstream, more or less in the direction of a black-

Of a black-clad figure, shuddering unclearly. Danny frowned and turned back to the west, where she had seen something similar first. Nothing disturbed the rippling grass. She returned to the north and found the black flicker closer, almost to the cairn she’d noted. As she watched, it fluttered out of existence.

Then, keeping very still, she watched it reappear. It stood at the bottom of the rocky mass and although Danny could make out now features it was certainly a human form. Almost as it if were swaddled in black cloth under which a face and arms pushed out shapes, letting the loose edges flap in the wind. She became aware that her breath was coming faster.

It blinked away once more, and Danny craned her neck over the drop to try and find it again. Behind her, she loosely registered a sudden gust and sound as if a flag were snapping in the wind.

“Well, hello to the gingersnap,” crooned a voice from behind her. “Looking for someone?”

* * *

It was nearly midday, and Laura sat on one of the avenue stones out front of the house and looked over the expanse of mountain. It was all bare, save for the carpet of yellowish brown grass and the upstanding outcrops of rock with their fringes of heather. In hollows here and there, water collected and little thickets of rushes waved in the incessant wind. Indeed, the wind seemed more real than the blasted landscape, the grey sky more enduring than the land beneath. She kicked her heels against the stone she perched on and wondered where Danny had got to.

“Where’s Big Red?”

Carmilla drifted into view from behind her. She still wore only the plain green dress and short grey leggings she had worn at breakfast. The skin of her arms was very white and had no goosebumps, Laura saw.

“Do you ever wear shoes?” she asked. The girl’s feet were bare again despite the sharpness of the loose stones and roughness of the grass. Carmilla said nothing in reply, but started to wander in a vague circle around Laura's position on the stone. She placed her feet very precisely and with great grace.

“I don’t know where Danny’s got to,” Laura told her. “Probably gone exploring though, like she said. Maybe she’s gone up to the top.” She pointed up at the peak behind the house. “She’s very energetic.”

“I can imagine,” purred Carmilla. Laura felt an irrational stab of annoyance. It was not her imagination that there was a hint of appreciation in Carmilla's voice, but there was no reason for that to annoy her so much.

“Can you?” she asked, and it came out more harshly than she intended. But Carmilla only assumed an expression of some satisfaction.

“Can imagine a lot of things, cariad.” She completed the circle but continued drifting around Laura’s perch in a second loop.

“Like what?”

“See the stone you sit on,” Carmilla breathed. She had her eyes closed as she moved past Laura's vision again and she spoke as if reciting.

“A man made it. He hewed it from the rock above with a bronze pick and his brother helped him roll it. He raised it for his father, most mighty of men, whose name has been forgotten and whose tongue is long silent. The man who cut the stone died under the sign of the Bull and his bones lie in Llyn Isaf, far from his home.

“Women met here. They carried a baby wrapped in a woollen coat when they came up, but they did not coming down. Their cries when they knew what they had done woke the sleeping in the fort on Tal-y-Fan that is now under the earth and cursed by the Cewri.”

Carmilla's revolving walk was not a circle, Laura saw. She came closer with every turn and spiralled in towards her. There was a lightness in her head, and she watched the girl move across the background of the landscape with an untroubled clarity, nearer every time. A tugging behind her skull nudged her to lean forward each time Carmilla came in front of her.

“How do you know these thing?” she asked. It didn't occur to her to doubt, somehow, that Carmilla was telling the truth.

“The wind saw them,” Carmilla said. Her hand was close enough now to brush up against Laura's knees as she passed. “The wind remembers the curses and the sacrifices and the vows of revenge that were never kept.”

Laura saw the silver spirals of Carmilla's necklace and the way they brushed the fine structure of her neck. There was something slightly painful, something almost empty happening deep down in her chest, like the half-acknowledged pain of loss.

“There is a grave down there.” She pointed to a subtle hummock in the ground, raised above a boggy patch where bare peat and pools of shallow water jostled against each other. “The one who sleeps there wears a golden crown. He was a cruel man and they were glad to see him go. We have not forgotten him, and he has not forgotten what his sins bought him.”

Carmilla's arm found her waist and stroked around and around with her spiral dance, plucking at the thick weave of her jumper. There were lips almost against her ear, speaking in whispers. Carmilla's words teased the back of her neck, lapped at her collarbone where it stood out from her shirt. 

Laura felt the tugging again, pulling her forwards, inevitable. She leaned in. Carmilla’s lips were cold but so were hers, here in the open. Her hands on Laura’s neck were cold too, but that refreshing cold which blows away the cobwebs of too long spent inside.

The kiss deepened, and Laura felt herself drawn closer and closer into Carmilla. There was a tightness in her chest and only the girl kissing her could understand it. She wanted to empty herself, to fold herself into Carmilla's embrace. There was too much inside her and she cast it to the air.

Her breath was coming out of her and she could not break away.


	3. Most Unlikely Flesh

The woman was dressed from head to toe in a loose black mantle. She showed only her hands and face – beautiful, precise, focused. Her eyes staring into Danny were the black of hollows under the earth.

“Who are you?” Danny demanded. She shifted position automatically, lowered her centre of gravity, positioned her arms. 

“Now darling, that's scarcely good manners. Why, I should be asking where a delicious creature like you sprang from.” She flashed a smile, wide and bright, then turned it off just as quickly. “Name, please.”

“Danny. And who's asking?”

“Oh, call me Mattie. Danny... how charming.” Her manner flowed straight into that of an indulgent hostess. “What brings you to my little home?”

Danny shot glances to either side. “Your home?” 

Mattie floated closer. She really did seem to float, hardly rising or falling with each step. “Don't play games with me, gingersnap. That's my job.” Again the moods crossed her face in seconds, leaving no trace.

“I'm staying with Carmilla at-” Danny began, but was broken off by the eruption of the woman's laughter. It was oddly happy for such a creature.

“ _Carmilla!_ Oh, that's wonderful.” Mattie performed a little ironic bow. “Well if you're dear Kitty's latest, then welcome.” She turned a slow circle and beamed at the world.

“You know her?” Danny relaxed slightly, but only slightly.

She waved an arm. “My sister. Such a cute little monster. I can see why she picked you to bring home. Where is she?”

“Back at the house, I assume. With my friend.”

“Oh, two of you! What a treat.” Mattie moved her lips in a way that Danny didn't quite like but did find herself rather wanting to see again. “Well, I shall certainly look in now that I'm around... I look forward to, hmm, having you.”

_And you told her about Laura, you idiot_ , Danny cursed herself. She felt herself cooling down having stood around for the last few minutes and shivered. T shirt and walking trousers zipped off to shorts didn't seem so suitable all of a sudden.

“Cold?” asked Mattie. “I'm surprised, fit and healthy girl like you. You were radiating heat when I arrived.” Her eyes seemed to glow. “Mind you, all those bare limbs... enough to warm a girl up with.”

Danny straightened up. “They'll be expecting me back soon,” she said, hoping it was true. The way down off the hill was steep and she wouldn't be able to go fast, but maybe Mattie would let her go rather than – whatever else might happen.

“Oh, don't run off,” she pouted. “Why, I've not even had a chance to see what you're made of yet.”

Mattie's fingers curled around her arm. They were cold, and seemed to tug at Danny's flesh. She felt light-headed all of a sudden. She should be throwing Mattie off, or questioning her, or something. But the chilly pressure of her fingers pulled Danny's mind in and didn't let her think of anything else.

Danny just watched without wavering as Mattie pulled her in closer closer. She could smell her, and the scent of moss and heather was suddenly dizzying. All the worries and tension just seemed to evaporate off her, consumed by Mattie's presence. She saw through her growing grogginess how precisely outlined Mattie's eyes were, how soft her lips looked. There was a part of her that screamed to run, but it came from a long way off, like the distant sounds struggling to penetrate a dream. She was still chilled, but that didn't seem something to be concerned about.

Her hand on Danny's arm was cold and painful, like fresh winter air when walking energetically or muscle ache when ascending a mountain. Bracing. She sucked air into the bottom of her lungs. There was a buzzing in her ears, and in the middle of her head. 

Mattie's fingers stroked gently down her arm, from shoulder to elbow. 

Slowly but unhesitating, Danny took hold of Mattie's hand and moved it to her midriff, brushing her top of out the way . The fingers spread out across her bare abdomen and Danny closed her eyes.

“Like that, Longshanks?”

There was a pressure. She felt it inside her like a breath that she'd held too long. This was more, as if she'd been holding everything in too long. Breathe it out. Let it all go. All the frustrations and the annoyances and the prickings of envy. How good it would feel to empty herself, to pour it all into the waiting emptiness of Mattie. Danny flowed with the attraction.

Her mouth was hanging open and Mattie drifted closer. Her mouth hovered over Danny's neck, and then her cheek.

“Doesn't it feel good to just let it all go?” she purred and it did. Her words were soft tickles of air against Danny's skin, and it only just registered on her consciousness that her words were the only things that did tickle. There were no breaths to raise hairs on her chilled skin. The grogginess was seeping all the way through her body, her limbs feeling heavy and useless. Exhausted.

Mattie's lips traced her jawline and came to hover, not quite touching, over Danny's. The penny width was a void she needed to fall into. She closed her eyes and emptied her lungs.

The kiss was gentle at first. Mattie's icy fingers crept around her waist and up her back, underneath her top. The other hand shocked her scalp and pulled her in. And then it wasn't so gentle any more but fixed firm and she wavered a bit in the confusion. The lips were a seal over hers and then Mattie breathed in.

From somewhere inside Danny came a wordless cry. Mattie sucked it down along with everything else. There was the sudden panic of oxygen starvation that cut through even the drowsy pleasure of emptying herself out into the waiting mouth, and then her whole body went limp and Mattie's strong arms had to take her weight entirely.

* * *

“Carm? Wha-” Laura staggered a bit, but Carmilla’s arm around her waist kept her upright as she was steered down the avenue of stones.

“You had a funny turn there, cariad.” Carmilla led her firmly down the path and away from the house.

“Oh.” Laura tried to remember what she’d been doing. She’d been sitting on one of the stones, and Carmilla had turned a spiral around here. Then they’d kissed. Hadn’t they? She shot a glance at Carmilla’s profile and wondered how you asked somebody whether or not you’d actually kissed them or just dreamed it in a moment of faintness. It sounded too much like a bad chat-up line. Besides, the fuzzy bit in the back of her head said it didn't feel like she'd been kissed. It felt like something else entirely.

“Where are we going?” she asked instead. The path led down from the hill, between the avenue of stones, and then around to the left, into a valley and a little stream.

“To the waterfall. I want to show it to you, it’s beautiful there.” Laura didn't have the focus or will to argue. If Carmilla wanted to take her there, then that was fine by her. Feeling was returning to her legs and walking was getting less wobbly, but Carmilla’s arm did not move from around her waist. It was nice. Laura decided to let it sit there.

Carmilla led the way down the little valley, crossing and recrossing a rocky stream tumbling down between dark pools stuffed with rushes. The babble of white water on stone filled the air. Once or twice birds with long, thin beaks were startled out of the damp heather by their approach and went whirring off into the sky. There were black specks high up – circling buzzards – and from the grassy slopes above the girls, skylarks launched themselves into bobbling flight. As the fresh air blew the cobwebs out of her system and as the exercise pumped warm blood through her, Laura began to wake up a bit more.

There was a cluster of mounds in the valley floor just where Carmilla led them away from the stream and up the side - little circular hummocks neatly arranged in a row along the stream. On the other side of the valley, the skyline was cut by an erect stone pointing up into the clouds. Looking back, there was a trio of cairns on the horizon, just where the swell of the landscape crested. The debris of ages littered the landscape and Laura asked Carmilla about it.

“Nobody comes here much,” Carmilla said. “So nothing gets destroyed. Nothing gets ploughed over to grow crops. Nothing gets knocked down for fear of superstition and what the peasants do at Midsummer. We keep it all where it was made. Come on, up here.” She bounded up a rocky patch of the sloping valley. She moved gracefully on her bare feet, and extended a hand at turns to help Laura up. 

“You know,” said Laura between gasps for air, “you have really poor circulation for someone who does this much exercise. Danny-”

“-always warm?” Carmilla smirked. “Hmm, yes. I can feel it coming off her.” She flicked her eyes to the sky and Laura struggled grumpily up to the little spur of ground to look out over the spreading land.

“Wow,” she said when she'd caught her breath. “All this. You know, I live in London. Everywhere you go, people. You see hundreds of new people every day but _this_. There's nobody for miles.”

Carmilla beamed proudly. “This is the land beyond the fields, cupcake. The space between.” She spread her arm to take in the horizon. “Villages and farms to the west. To the east. To the north. Everywhere there is the world of law and order. But this is the place where people are driven to hide.

“There was a prince – this wasn't so long ago. He was called Dafydd. Not a good man, but he was the last Prince of Wales. The last independent one, I mean. He tried to hide not far away when the last battle went wrong.”

“What happened?” Laura tried to remember when the Welsh conquest happened. Whichever century it had been, 'not so long ago' was surely not how she would have described it.

“He didn't hide well enough,” Carmilla shrugged. “He was tortured to death in Shrewsbury.”

“What charming local history you have here.”

“It's the high watermark, where the flotsam of the tide gets stuck.” Carmilla seemed hardly to be listening. She recited as if to herself. “The English drove the Welsh to the west. The Welsh drove us up-” she broke off.

_Us?_ Laura thought. “What were you about to-”

“Nothing. Forget it. Look – over there. There's a kestrel.” There was, hovering over the valley and they watched it in silence for a minute until it dropped. Carmilla's hand snaked back around Laura's waist and at this point there was hardly the excuse of supporting somebody who'd just had a funny turn. Laura plucked up the courage.

“What happened back there?” she asked. “On the stone. You kissed me – I think. And then something happened to me.”

Carmilla took a while to reply. “I’m sorry, Laura,” she said eventually, and Laura knew she was serious because she used her name. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. Not at first. I was just teasing – and then I couldn’t help myself.”

“You were cold,” she remembered. Carmilla's lips. Cold, but not the clammy cold of somebody who's been outside too long. More like a fresh cold.

“I am always cold,” said Carmilla. “Always. You would have warmed me - for a short while.”

“And then?” Laura asked, fearful.

“And then you might not be standing here now.”

It was coming back from the jumbled mess at the back of her head. “There was a pain in my chest. Or – not a pain. A pressure.” Carmilla nodded. “I wanted to breath out.”

“I wanted to breathe in,” Carmilla confirmed. “I was about to breathe _you_ in. Or some of you, anyway.” She dropped her hand from Laura's waist and started walking along the ridge above the valley, towards the waterfall.

“You stopped.” Laura jumped over a puddle collecting in a hollow and hurried after her. “Why did you stop?”

Carmilla looked anywhere but at her face. “I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t want to. Sometimes fishermen throw one back, you know? You didn’t mean to end up here, after all.”

“ _You_ brought me here,” Laura pointed out.

“Yes. I know. I wanted the company.”

Laura thought about the stories Carmilla had told, spiralling closer and closer. “What are you, Carm?” She grabbed her by the shoulder and halted her in her footsteps.

It was a sad smile. “Whatever I am, I have been it for a long time,” she said, and Laura did not press her. Instead she took Laura's hand and raised it to her lips. For a moment Laura thought that she wanted to kiss her hand, but Carmilla just held it there unmoving.

After a few confused moments she understood. “You're not breathing.” Laura took hold of Carmilla's hand and spread the palm across her mouth. “Not even a bit.”

“Never,” she confirmed.

“How can I help you?”

Carmilla looked shocked at the question. After a brief pause of amazement she pulled her hand out of Laura's grasp and carried on walking. “You can’t,” she said over her shoulder. “Besides,” she added brutally, “I said that sometimes I don’t want to. Most of the time I do. Most of the time I like it. So don’t go expecting angst-filled monster crap from me, cariad.”

“Why me, then?”

“Why does anyone do anything? Come on, we're not far.”

The land gave way in front of them. The valley ended in a sharp cliff, everything cut off from left to right. The stream on the left vanished and water tumbled down a cliff of a hundred feet or more, but it was their position that gave the situation its power more than their height. They stood on a rocky promontory thrown out cross-wise to the course of the river so that the water plunged to earth almost under their very feet.

“Oh, Carm! It is, it is beautiful.” She leaned against Carmilla’s side and looked out over the waterfall. “What a place to have on your doorstep.” Carmilla twitched away from the contact.

“You'll see it close to when you leave tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

Carmilla nodded, serious. “Too late today. We'll go back in a bit and find your ginger friend. Then tomorrow morning, I'll show you how to get out.” She caught Laura's expression. “This isn't some supernatural romance, cupcake. I've decided I don't feel like taking your breath from you. It happens once in a century, so be grateful. And go.

“These are the edge lands, Laura. This is where the graves of the unquiet are kept, and the stones of forgotten gods are left lying. This is where exiles are driven to die. And we are always cold and we are always hungry.”

The lonely teenager had passed from her face and she stood on the cliff with her hair flung backwards and the landscape gathered around her like a cloak. The gusts came about them and Laura shrank down into her collar, but Carmilla’s shouting cut through the noise.

“When the wind was enchanted  
With the dreaming of not being wind  
It was enchanted by Math,  
Before we became immortal,  
It was enchanted by Gwydyon  
The great purifier of the Brython,  
When the removal occurred,  
It was enchanted by the Guledig.  
When he was half-burnt,  
It was enchanted by the sage  
Of sages, in the primitive world-”

The rest was drowned out by an almighty shrieking. Laura understood nothing of what she had shouted. It sounded like quotation, or recitation of something from long ago. Carmilla was… she hunted around for words. She was fell: that was it. A word out of fantasy and epic. She was something else entirely.

“Who are we, then?” she asked. “To you?”

“You are things that pass in the night,” Carmilla said. The fell mood passed, and she smiled a soft smile. “You are things that change, in the middle of a life that doesn’t.”

Laura felt it then, the force of time. There were centuries on Carmilla's shoulders, possibly millennia. How long had she eked out an existence on the fringes of humanity, sucking the breath from passing travellers? Did they have stories down there in the coastal villages, of people who never came back? Did boastful men claim in the pubs at night that they'd been up into the Carneddau one autumn evening – not so different from this, you know – and caught a glimpse of the soulless spirit wandering there?

Carmilla drifted closer. She pushed Laura's chin up. “You don't want to feel sorry for me, cariad. The air is thick with the ghosts of people who saw me as I truly am.”

Her hand was cold, but Laura held it against her cheek with her own. “Can you kiss? Normally, I mean?” Her lips were now so close to Carmilla's that the absence of breath was tangible.

Carmilla stared into her eyes. Her own eyes were wide, and there was something almost like fear in them. “Yes,” she said. “I have done. A long time ago.”

“Who was she?”

“She died, Laura.” The tears were gathering in the corners of her eyes. “She died and it was my fault. Her name was Ell.”

Laura almost didn't want to know. “Did you...?”

“No!” Carmilla hissed. “No. Never.”

Laura stood in the centre of her turmoil. Her thoughts buffeted her from all directions. At last she found herself free, balanced. “Can I-”

“Yes.”

Laura kissed her. Carmilla kept her mouth closed tight, but she reached up to brush Laura's cheek with her hand. It was icy and Laura nearly jumped away at the contact, but after the initial shock she felt the tugging again just as she had before. Carmilla's body seemed to pull at her, inviting her to throw herself wide open.

But then there were hands on her shoulders, pushing her back. Carmilla's dark eyes stared deep into hers and were unreadable.


	4. All Things In Flux

The house was empty when they arrived back in the gathering dusk. Laura tried the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedrooms. She shouted Danny's name, but there was no answer. There was no signal on her phone, but she tried calling her anyway. Her large bag was lying on the floor of the bedroom, but her day bag was nowhere to be seen. Danny had definitely been carrying it when she left that morning.

She rushed down to where Carmilla sprawled in an armchair in front of the barren hearth and frowned at the cinders. “We need to look for Danny. She's missing.”

Carmilla shuffled around in her seat and did not look at Laura. “I'm sure she's fine, cupcake,” she said. “Probably just went further than she expected.”

Laura gripped the back of the chair nearest to her. “Without telling us? No, something's wrong. We need to go look for her. Haven't you got some magical senses or something?”

“Doesn't work like that sweetheart,” said Carmilla. “Besides, it's getting dark. It's best to stay inside after sunset.” She waved at the small windows where the light was greying rapidly and the sky taking on a navy blue tint.

“And what about _Danny_ after sunset?” Laura felt the panic rising from her stomach. “She could get hurt, or lost. Oh God, she could have fallen somewhere.” She wrung her hands, and Carmilla got up to grab hold of them and keep them still.

“Look. Laura. Staying here is the safest thing for you.” She met Laura's eyes at last.

“And why is that?” She demanded, fear creeping into her stomach. “Are there more like you out there? More pale wraiths to go sucking girls' souls out or whatever it is you do?”

“I didn't-”

“Not with me,” Laura said. The simple joy of the kiss at the waterfall was wearing off as the seriousness of their situation sank in. “But you said yourself, you just had some... oh, fuck knows what! Impulse to let the cute girl off! What if you hadn't? And you didn't answer my question: are there any more like you?”

Carmilla looked down at the ground, before sighing. “Yes. There are more.”

“Oh. Great! So there are murderous whatever-you-ares crawling over the hills and you've spent a charming day _not_ letting me know that Danny isn't safe? Did you think this was a good idea?”

“I just wanted-”

“You wanted a little holiday. Yeah. Well. I though it was nice too - when it was just us. Me and the strange monster girl with a crush on me, that was okay. A bit weird, a bit Buffy, but okay. Me and the strange monster girl and _all the other monsters_ who have probably _consumed my best friend_ is less good.”

There was a snapping from outside the door, as if a heavy sheet of cloth were being whipped back and forth. For an instant at its opening her heart leapt, but then saw that it was not Danny. Instead, there was a woman dressed all in black, and with glossy dark hair and eyes.

“My my,” crooned the new entrant. “We have a visitor. Ciao, bella,” she added to Carmilla who rushed forward to give her a hug.

“Mattie!” she cried. “When did you get back? I thought you were on Eryri.”

“Oh, I was until this morning. But tourists. You know.” Her eyes flicked to Laura. “Who's your little friend?”

Carmilla came up short and flustered. “Um. Mattie, this is Laura. I, er, found her. Laura, this is my sister Mattie.”

“Oh,” said Laura weakly. “Um, cool. You weren't kidding about there being others, then.” She gingerly shook Mattie's offered hand. Mattie had very white teeth and a smile that flickered across her face almost instantly – and flickered off just as quickly.

“Well you're one of the prettiest things I've seen all day,” she beamed. “And I've seen a few pretty ones. The autumn collection is in.” 

“Have you seen Danny?” Laura asked eagerly. “My friend. She's about six foot, red hair. She went out walking earlier and hasn't come back.”

Mattie posed as extravagantly thoughtful. “Hmm, no, I don't think so. I don't think so. I'm sure I would have remembered a flame-haired giantess striding across the moors.” Carmilla shot her a sharp look, but Mattie gazed back with open innocence. 

“Right.” Laura twisted her hands. “But now you're here, we can go looking right? Carm said it wasn't safe, but there's three of us now. So-”

“Oh no darling, I don't think you should be leaving us tonight.” She sashayed forward and tipped Laura's chin up with one outstretched finger. “I would _much_ prefer your company here.”

“Mattie-” started Carmilla.

“Don't you Mattie me. You know the rules about guests. It's share and share alike.” She ran her finger down Laura's neck and performed a gentle shiver. “No keeping your toys to yourself.”

Laura felt the ground unsteady beneath her. She tried to shrink behind Carmilla, who appeared disconcerted at being asked to defend her.

“Oh sis, that would upset me,” she said, and her voice took on a wheedling tone. Probably she was putting on the little sister act, because Mattie wore in short succession expressions of amusement, exasperation and finally indulgence.

“Oh God, it's this again,” she groaned and then declared with a wave. “Fine. Keep the little nymph to yourself. But she's staying here nonetheless. No need to attract extra attention to your... pet-keeping.” Carmilla opened her mouth, but Mattie continued. “I believe the words you're looking for are 'gee Mattie, thanks for being so understanding.'”

Carmilla sighed and repeated Mattie's words. Laura, however, had latched on to her statement about 'extra attention' and understood that there was something she'd missed. As Mattie removed one of her outer cloaks, she paced around at the dimly-lit hall that never seemed to have a spot without a draught. There was the fumbling cold air at the windows, the gust somehow coming down the chimney around which the three chairs clustered.

“Three,” she muttered out loud. “Carmilla. There are three chairs.”

Carmilla wandered across from helping Mattie and asked casually. “Yes?”

“Don't try that. There are three chairs. Where's your other sister?”

“There isn't one. I have only one sister.” She indicated Mattie, beaming every time Laura looked at her.

* * *

It was dark when Danny awoke, and very cold. She emerged out of her faint slowly, the grogginess and swirling imbalance draining off her like water. The stars were out, but there was no moon and little to see by. Feeling had drained out of her limp limbs and her shallow breath was crystallising in the air around her.

She struggled to sit up. This was not good. The way up the hill had been easy enough when she could see what was happening, but it was hardly a track and people died trying to do this kind of thing at night. And of course she hadn't packed a torch: she had come up exploring in the late morning and-

-and met Mattie. The events of earlier came back to her in a rush. Danny swore quietly, and then a second time more loudly as the implications sank in. She pressed her hand to her stomach at the place Mattie had touched her. There was no mark but the memory of being drowsily drawn in, her thought suppressed, surfaced clearly enough.

“Laura,” she said out loud. She'd left Laura alone with Carmilla. That kicked her into gear.

Her phone gave the time as half-past nine. The faint had claimed her for ten hours, which would explain the stiffness in her joints and the way the cold had gone deep inside. She scrabbled around in her bag and retrieved the layers and zipped-off parts of trousers discarded that morning. There was half a bar of fudge in one of the side pockets and she gulped it down for the sugar high.

She felt light-headed, residue of whatever Mattie had done to it - or perhaps the effect of whatever Mattie had taken. Or there were more mundane explanations as well, since ten hours in shorts and t-shirts in these conditions was enough to induce hypothermia. 

She checked her phone's connections and tried to suppress the surge of fear at the absence of any little black bars. No signal was normal for hiking in the mountains. Not a sign of supernatural interference. The light worked at least, so she clipped the case to her belt with the screen facing outwards. It didn't exactly point in the direction she wanted, but she could keep her hands free for the descent.

The spiralling path down was narrow, but the greater difficulty was with the scrambling sections she had so easily scurried up that morning. She squatted down close to the surface whenever the path ran out and patted the rock until she found damp. Then, splaying herself out on all fours, she followed the traces of water until the regular course resumed itself. Somehow she made it to the bottom of the hill, where boggy ground occupied the valley floor and her phone light picked out the irregular faces of standing stones. But which way was the house? She remembered the path up to the overhanging bluff to be hidden from the sides – she would need to do a circuit of the hill to stand any chance of finding it.

Mattie had done something to her. It hadn't been fatal, but it had surely been potentially fatal. Whether she had survived by deliberate choice on Mattie's part or by sheer luck, it had had its effects nonetheless. She felt less substantial somehow, less weighty and physical. It was like the aftermath of a serious fever, everything loose and limp and fuzzy. Her body was definitely there, but she couldn't shake the feeling that it might float off if she didn't keep herself anchored firmly in it. Symptoms of hypothermia: disorientation, paradoxical feelings of warmth and safety, growing lethargy. She needed to guard against those, and that meant keeping moving. If she could find the house, all the better. If not, movement was preferable to sitting out here and freezing to death.

She turned her face upwards to the sky. There were occasional clouds blocking the stars, but the sky as a whole was clear and this far from a town they stood out brightly against the black background. She swivelled until she found the Plough and then followed Draco around Ursa Minor, tipped with the Pole Star. So there was north. Taurus was strong tonight but Orion was rising slowly beneath him, ready for battle.

All right. She'd done this before. In the night, and in such a broken and difficult country, all ways looked the same. It was all very well to put your hand on the hill and follow your fingerprints round until you found where you started, but when you had to depart again and again to avoid bogs and impassable rock walls, that was easier said than done. Mark your direction in the stars, and watch the hill as it blocked out each constellation in turn. If walking long, make allowances for the movement of stars across the heavens. She'd done it in Skye years before and made it safely out of the Cuillins at four in the morning.

Someone touched her on the shoulder and she spun round to find only night of the same texture as on the other side. Nothing was lit up by the inadequate wavering light from her phone, only the sharpening shadows on the other side of rocks.

“Who's there?” she demanded of the shadow passing by her shoulder. There was no reply. And there was nothing-

There were shapes.

Were there shapes? It was hard to tell. It was possible her eyes were just so tired of the deep darkness that they were making things up. But here and there, just at the edges of her vision, were movements which could be attributed just as easily to moving figures as to the blurring of tired eyes.

The battery on her phone died at last and she was plunged into the deeper darkness of true night. She stood still for a minute, allowing her eyes to adapt as far as possible before moving on, but there was so very little light that it was almost pointless. Some tiny residue of skyglow from the villages along the coast, some faint illumination stemming from it not yet being midnight, and that was all.

She went forward with her hands stretched out and down. She discovered rumplings in the slope with her fingers before seeing their vague shadows. There were standing stones all over this landscape, barrows curled up amidst the bog, tumbled cairns marking forgotten spots. Her hands learned them.

_-hungry-_

She stopped and stood still. Had she heard that or just imagined it?

_-cold-_

It was on the bridge between hearing and thinking. Somewhere to the left of her came the lamenting voice, mixed in with the wind and the slow churning of her own heartbeat echoing in her ears. She tried to come closer to the source, but it faded away and all that came out of the night to meet her was yet another mound, surmounted by a weathered rock.

_-sleep stone wind breathe gone tomb-_

The valley was thick with the half-heard murmuring of voices rattled out of their graves. She could almost touch them. There was no distinguishing the fluttering of breezes from the gentle touches of the long dead. Danny wondered how close she had come to death to be able to half-see who was passing her and half-hear what was whispering to her, and then she refused to think any more about that. She sat down on the driest mound she could find, her back to a stone, and waited for it to be over. 

When the voices came again, she clamped her hands over her ears. But the sound grew and grew until the most almighty howling passed by and she curled into the ground as deep and hidden as she could. The gale of noise and cold contained sounds, hoofbeats, creakings, far-off thunder.

* * *

“Penny for your thoughts, small girl.” Mattie had emptied something viciously alcoholic from a dusty bottle into a tumbler and was sipping it while staring down Laura. From somewhere in the kitchen, Carmilla was doing something involving heavy clunking.

“Well, I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere surrounded by evil soul-stealing monsters, and the only thing protecting me is the slightly less evil soul-stealing monster who's probably only doing it from deep-seated psychological issues,” said Laura. “So, there's that. Also my best friend is missing and I last saw her angry at me for flirting with said soul-stealing monster, so that's pretty bad.”

To her unexpected satisfaction, Mattie actually looked nonplussed for several seconds. Then her wide smile returned and she burst out laughing. “Oh, _gidget_. You're actually pretty fun! I can see why Carm likes you. Aren't you afraid I'm going to suck your life out if you offend me?”

Laura shrugged. “Well, yeah. But you might do that anyway, so I might as well talk back. It's what I do. I'm a journalist, we don't shut up.”

“Doing any investigating while you're here?” she asked.

“Carmilla told us about the Coraniaid last night,” Laura said after a while. “They could hear everything the wind touched. One of the Three Afflictions of the Island of Britain.” She tried to keep the hopeful tone out of her voice.

Mattie smiled a slow smile. “Trying to pump me for information about weaknesses, cub reporter?” Laura flushed, but she continued with a wave. “Oh, I don't mind! Keeps the conversation interesting. Besides, you won't gain anything from it. Yes, in the Triads. The Coraniaid. And then in the Mabinogion. Do you know what kills them, according to the legend?”

“Maybe some kind of easily-learned magical incant-”

“Beetles. Really.” Mattie snorted. “Crushed beetles that kill Coraniaid and leave Brythons standing. The thing about legends, little girl, is that they become fiction one half-second after being written down. And you know what happens to fiction: it gets rewritten, frequently changing the important bits. Why, were you expecting a gnarly Sumerian tome with a neat spell hidden somewhere in the house?”

It would have been nice. “So how did our heroes work that out? I mean, how do you hatch a plot against creatures who hear everything?”

“A big horn. A very big horn to use like an ear trumpet.” Mattie rolled her eyes. “You know, certain writers of mythology lack any kind of taste or sense of the dramatic. Besides,” she added, turning more serious. “Don't think you know what we are in this house because you've found a name that half-fits. Has Carm told you anything? Anything important - really?”

Laura thought for a while. “She told me about Ell,” she said eventually. It didn't seem like much now that she came to it.

“Ell?” Mattie looked puzzled for a few moments until realisation struck. “Oh, the girl! Back in – when was it now? - 1698 or thereabouts.” The smile returned to her face. “Did she now? And what did she say?”

Laura relayed what Carmilla had told her. “Carmilla fell in love with her. But she died – Carmilla didn't kill her, but I think she feels guilty anyway.”

“Hmm,” Mattie purred. “Well yes, she would. Do you want to know what happened?” Laura nodded. “Well, the little Kitty came across this abandoned blonde... confection back in 1698. She took her in, and was so _adamant_ that she mustn't be killed. It was sickeningly sweet. They went for long walks on the hills holding hands and I'm sure there were whispered terms of affection. Utterly draining, if you ask me. Well, it didn't last.

“She had to go and tell the simpering creature all about herself. And in all the shouting and screaming and recriminations and – rather delightfully – posse from Ell's village mounting an attempted exorcism, _somebody_ drained her.”

“You?” asked Laura levelly. 

“Could be, but I rather think not. There was a vibratingly righteous priest in her attack party who took some work, so I was otherwise occupied.”

“Carmilla, then.” Mattie shrugged at this statement.

Laura looked at the empty chair. “The other one you won't tell me about?” she asked. Mattie returned her gaze wordlessly.

From the kitchen came a clanging sound as Carmilla dropped something. Mattie stiffened and sat up in her chair. The wind outside, never quiet in this place, was raising a noise louder and louder with seemingly no relenting. The door rocked on its hinges and finally, with a clatter that heralded the sudden cessation of every single noise, flew open.

In the doorway was a woman. She was only slightly taller than Laura and much less so than Mattie, but she carried herself in a way that made her larger than her body. Like the two sisters she wore no shoes, and her curly reddish hair was loose around her shoulders. Her skin was pale as porcelain, and quite as chill.

“Good evening. My dears.” Her voice was low and dangerous. “Oh, I see you have a pet. How thrilling.”

“Good evening, Mother,” said Mattie.


	5. Grave Stele

Laura tried to open her eyes more than halfway, but it was difficult. She was moving – she felt her feet turn and step across the flagstone floor – but it all seemed to be happening somewhere else. She was in somebody’s arms, weaving across the floor. There was music coming from an antique gramophone sitting on the huge table and it filled her body as her mind drifted in a dreamlike state.

“Laura?”

She managed to focus on the voice. Carmilla. It was Carmilla holding her, and Carmilla's shoulder she brushed with her fingers. There was… something she needed to say. Or had wanted to say. She couldn't remember if she was angry with Carmilla or whether that had been a bad dream.

“We’re dancing,” she managed. “I didn’t know you could waltz.”

“We’ve known each other like a day, cupcake. It doesn't exactly come up in conversation.” Laura giggled. “You were drifting.”

“Was I?” She supposed she was. “Yes, I was stepping on air. It was nice.” She dutifully twirled under Carmilla’s raised hand.

Her partner grasped her by the waist again. “You danced with Mother.” There was an urgency is her voice, as if she needed Laura to understand something.

Dutifully she tried to concentrate. Dancing. Yes, it had been going on for some time. Lilita had come in. Carmilla’s mother. And she had plucked her from out of Carmilla’s arms. Nobody had protested. There had been a dance. Hadn’t there? Had they kissed? Laura felt that Lilita had kissed her, but she couldn’t remember it. That was the kind of thing she wasn't meant to forget. And surely Carm should be angry if Lilita had kissed her? After all, Laura was Carm's particular friend.

Somewhere over to their left, Matska and Lilita were turning a figure of their own. They moved smoothly and confidently. By contrast, Laura felt she had fuzz in her head and only the continued guidance of Carmilla kept her in time. If Carm hadn’t been there, she would have swayed vaguely, buffeted to and fro by the omnipresent draft, until eventually she was too tired to stand.

“I kissed you,” Laura remembered. Her voice came out in a whisper. “Twice, actually. Once it hurt a bit, but in a good way.” Carmilla’s hand around her waist gripped convulsively. “And then by the waterfall it didn’t hurt at all.”

“I should have sent you away.” Carmilla didn't seem happy. It hurt Laura to see her new friend sad like that, though there was a voice trying to break through the fog inside her head that said she had more important things to be worrying about. “Or just consumed you that first night. That's good enough. Being friends always leads to this.”

Laura smiled. “You called me your friend,” she said, and Carmilla blushed.

“Come now, Kitty,” chided Mattie, appearing with a rustle of silk at their shoulders. “You mustn’t monopolize our guest. If you’re not going to have a little refreshment, you should let your family take their turns.” 

“Mattie-” began Carmilla.

“Don’t you Mattie me, you little monster.”

“Fine. Let me finish off, then.” Carmilla spun Laura away from her sister, into another part of the floor. “I have to kiss you,” she told her.

This didn’t seem too bad to Laura, and she smiled wanly at Carmilla. The gramophone juddered a little as one measure ended and another whirled unsteadily into life.

“Come _on_ , cupcake,” she hissed. “You need to wake _up_. Mattie and Mother are playing now, but soon they’ll get bored of little tastes and I can’t do anything about it. I ought to know better.”

Laura knew there was a warning being whispered into her ear, but she couldn’t manage to feel scared. She picked up what words she could. “My Dad always says you can do anything if you put your mind to it. Look, I’ve got two left feet and I’m dancing with you.”

Carmilla sighed.

“Why are you sad?” Laura asked. The light was dim, but she could see it. “We're friends. You've been very nice.”

“This would be much easier if you didn't talk so,” she muttered, and it sounded like she was addressing herself. “Never let them do the charming conversation thing. God damn it.”

She leaned forward and kissed Laura, who staggered under the unexpected force. Mattie came forward and took Laura up, with a parting chuck under Carmilla's chin as she sloped off to join her mother.

“Now isn’t this _nice_ , darling,” Mattie purred. She was taller than Carmilla and her movements, graceful as they were, pulled Laura across the floor at a faster pace.

Laura felt her heart speed up. There was the beginning of warmth building in her limbs. “Charming,” she muttered. “Having a lovely party with a trio of soul-stealing … things. Delightful.”

“You’re sarcastic all of a sudden.” Mattie narrowed her eyes. “Thought you were on the edge of collapse for a moment.”

She had been, Laura realized. But Carmilla’s kiss- she had breathed _into_ her. She had put something back.

“Too much to be interested in,” she told her partner. “I'm a journalist, like I said. Can't nap when there's investigations to be had. What’s Carmilla’s deal, for a start?”

Mattie laughed. “Ah, much to be concerned about there, crushes-on-monsters. Well, our dear Kitty has always been the sentimental one. Sometimes she lets a breath of fresh air like yourself go! Just because they’re cute, or dreadfully earnest or artistic. _Oh, don’t take him, he’s a poet!_ ” she mocked. “ _Or her, she’s got such a beautiful voice. She’s just too pretty to ruin_ … enough to give a girl cavities.” She delicately mimed retching.

“No such sentimentality in your life?” Laura asked, trying to keep her voice light. There really was life coming back into her, she realized. Enough to use longer words. Enough to be sarcastic. Perhaps enough to survive whatever Mattie was about to do next.

“Well gidget, I’m a sporting creature.” Mattie let a beaming smile open across her face. “I have been known to occasionally award prizes for a game well played – keeps things fresh.”

That was one point of hope, then. Laura snuck a glance over Mattie’s shoulder to where Carmilla was being led unhappily across the floor by Lilita. “And your mother?”

“Never.” Mattie looked seriously into Laura’s eyes. “So since she’s at home tonight, I’d give up any hope.” Laura shivered and Mattie licked her lips. “Feeling cold? I can help you with that.”

Mattie withdrew her hand from Laura’s shoulder and hooked it under her chin. She drew her in. The kiss was cold, compelling. Laura felt a disturbing fluttering inside her as Mattie breathed in.

“Delightful,” Mattie pronounced as Laura swayed uncertainly in her arms. “I can see what Kitty sees in you. And robust, too: thought you’d be gone by this point. Your turn again, Mother.”

* * *

Danny steadied herself on the long barrow, leaning on the moss-covered stone surmounting it for support. The great wind had passed through, but she could draw no comfort from that fact. In this place, there was no telling what might have caused it. She fixed her eyes on the stars again. They were reliable – except, she remembered hearing from an old girlfriend, they weren't because the Earth wobbled and the sky wobbled with it. But that was irrelevant to tonight.

She tried to centre herself and stop the cloud of tiredness and distraction from fogging her mind. She concentrated on the stone. It was of similar stuff to the valley itself: hard, crystalline, and igneous. Moss filled the weathered depressions where water collected. From out of the bottom, shielded from the prevailing wind and slightly disturbing the rest of the stone, grew a thin and straggly rowan sapling. It had hardly managed to grow higher than her, but it was already bent and crabbed by the incessant battering of the elements. Roots plunged into the earth below and pierced the empty skull of the barrow’s occupant.

She wondered where that thought had come from. It didn't seem quite like hers.

The roots were snaking through the mismatched stones roofing the burial chamber. To each side they followed the walls, and one great one through the middle. The dead king gaped his mouth to swallow the twining wood and beetles crawled through his empty ribcage.

She could almost see it. The image was sinking into her mind with indelible certainty, and she understood from somewhere that the boundaries of her soul were growing as fragile as the outlines of her body. Mattie hadn't taken enough of her to kill her, but she was insubstantial enough to be buffeted around by whatever was blowing in the other world.

Which, if you followed the thought to its horrible conclusion, might lead to the suspicion that she was not at all alone. The valley air must be thick with the ghosts and echoes of the sisters' victims.

And so, half in and half out of the world of the living, Danny Lawrence sat cross-legged on the ancient grave and listened as hard as she could. At first there was nothing except the never-ending turmoil of the air. But then, slowly, the half-hints of ideas and voices she had heard on her way down came back. Instead of shutting them out, she let them in.

“Tell me,” she whispered to the night.

_-lost-_

“Tell me.”

_-hungry-_

“Who?” she asked.

_-hungry-_ was the answer

_-defeated-_ said another.

“Tell me.”

_-battle lost exiles-_ She listened _–last long home-_

_-woman-_ put in another whisper _–cursed fled-_

And then it all came in a rush from a thousand directions. _-hungry lost cold fled hidden buried sleep cold stolen exile wasteland condemned warriors king crown theft punishment hatred war stone sleep ever stars strange-_ She clapped her hands over her ears but it went on regardless. _–wind curse death bones sleep long sleep earth sleep stone cold wind always grave-_

“Make sense!” she screamed and drove her fist into the grave below her. The tumult subsided.

_-long ago-_ said the oldest voice from beneath her when all the others were silent _–such days older than stars other stars the bull rose at the balance land my land how I have soiled it-_

She focused on the rambling which rose around her from out the tree-pierced grave. “The bull?” she asked, picking a word at random.

_-i called it it was flame on the hilltop with the sun in its horns i called it with my own all gone-_

“You died?” That seemed a bit obvious to ask, but surely he would remember that.

_-i ruled badly how i have soiled it my land-_

“Were they here? The women in the house?”

The rowan bent and cracked in the gust that followed. _–they were here they were here they were always here we blew them away-_ From high up, on the edges of the valley, Danny heard a deep throaty howling. _–stones bull and stones and now they are fallen by my own flesh how i have soiled my land-_

Danny took in the babbling voice, repeating its pain and forgetfulness. There was hardly sense in it, but there was the echo of sense. “You ruled these hills,” she said.

_-my land flesh my own flesh how he was young and not grown but i ruled cruelly-_

Danny tried to focus. “But you lived here. And they were here already.”

_-always-_

“You kept them away.”

_-stones stones and the bull all gone-_

“The stones are gone?”

_-bull is gone he rose at the balance with the sun in his horns the stones made him and he the stones-_

She understood. Up in the sky, the Bull. Down on the ground the stones. And it had kept the cursed women penned in to their valley. Even if the king under the ground had been a bad king, he had seen to that duty. But stars change with the slow rotation of the skies. Taurus no longer marked the sunrise at the equinox and the stones no longer worked. How long ago? Millenia, probably. The king under the ground might be four thousand years old.

The prospect of realigning the stones to the current position seemed remote, even if she knew on what rationale they should be reordered. “Can’t you help me?” she asked, despairing.

_-he rose at the balance with the sun in his horns i called him with my own-_

She saw it, as she had seen him in his cold sleep. She scrabbled down to the front of the barrow and dug into the earth with her bare hands even when the bladed grass cut them. Under the grass were roots and matted lumps of decay. She tore through them, ignoring her ripping nails. Her hands found the stones walling off the burial chamber and scrabbled through them. A space big enough for a hand, and then two, and then Danny pushed the front half of her body inwards and slithered into the darkness. 

Roots on the ceiling, unnerving textures on the floor that were probably the king's bones. There was broken pottery, and miscellaneous lumps of tarnished metal, all heaped at his feet. Finally her hands found what she had expected and she crawled backwards out of the tomb. The bands around it were rusted and crumbling, the strap had long since rotted away. But the giant bull's horn was intact. Above her in the eastern sky, Taurus bore down onto the triple stars of Orion's belt.


	6. Those Entombing Pits

The blowing of the horn resounded through the house, shaking the shadows and disturbing the sleeping dust. Lilita tensed immediately and dropped Laura half-sprawling on the floor. Mattie and Carmilla faltered in the middle of their steps, looking about wildly. The three inhabitants drew together, staring in the direction of the valley as if the wall were transparent. Behind them, the gramophone wound down and the music ceased.

“Mother-” started Mattie. There was a new expression of fear dislodging the normal smug satisfaction on her face. Carmilla shifted nervously from one foot to the other.

“Yes.” Lilita let out a hiss. 

Laura struggled to her feet, rubbing her jolted wrists. “What is it?”

“Quiet, dear.” Lilita clicked her fingers together several times in succession. She threw the door open and stared out into the night. Chill air emptied into the room. “I’m thinking.”

“Maybe it was something else?” Carmilla suggested hopefully. “I mean, what are the odds?”

“No,” Lilita said simply. The horn sounded again, clearer through the open doorway. Laura’s heart began to rise. Was that Danny out there? “You see?” Lilita asked and Carmilla nodded at the second bugle.

Mattie joined her mother at the door, curling her fingers around the frame. “They can’t do anything though, can they?” she asked. “It’s just a horn. Nothing more.”

“They can’t do anything yet,” she said. “But they must _know_ something. If some wretched little moppet is blowing an aurochs horn in our valley, how long until they figure out a way to put the stones back? They need to be nipped in the bud, Matska. I don’t suppose you saw anyone around earlier?”

Mattie looked back at Laura and Carmilla, unreadable. “There was a girl,” she said. “Redhead. That one’s friend,” and she jerked a thumb in Laura’s direction.

“Danny? You said-” Laura tailed off. She felt stupid all of a sudden, culpably stupid.

“I lied, little girl. Obviously.” Mattie made a face. “She seemed to rather like what I did to her, if it’s any consolation. A bit of a masochist, I suspected. But I thought she was finished.”

Lilita’s face showed displeasure. “You are a hurried eater, Matska. I’ve spoken to you about it before.”

“Bera Mawr?”

“You go there. I’ll take Llwytmor.” She looked back at Carmilla. “My darling, you keep your pet here. We'll want her when we get back. And she could be useful if our musician out there has a sentimental side.”

“I can-” Carmilla started.

“No. I’m not having you lose the sweetmeat in the dark and ending up with two unknowns. We’ll be back soon, when the intruder is dead.”

She stepped out into the night. She stepped – it seemed to Laura – _up_ into the night, and disappeared in a flurry of flapping cloth. Matska did the same. The wind, which had blustered randomly that evening, resumed blowing now with steadiness. There was focus and direction.

“Danny,” Laura said. “Danny is out there.”

Carmilla took hold of her arm. “You're staying here with me, creampuff. I know better than to disobey my mother.”

“But-”

“No buts.”

Laura shook her off and rounded on her. “Then what was it all about, Carm? The advising me to leave? The trying to keep me alive during the dance? What was all that for if you're just going to keep me warm for when Mummy dearest gets back?”

“Laura, I-” she trailed off. “Look, that was different. If it was behind her back – without her knowing – it's just me acting out a bit. But you don't know my mother. You do _not_ disobey her direct orders.”

“Is that what happened with Ell?” The question stunned Carmilla and Laura pressed on. “You gave up, didn't you? You were going to keep her safe but your mother told you not to.”

Carmilla shook Laura by the shoulder. “She told _her!_ ” she hissed. “Mother told Ell what I was. What we all were. And Ell believed me to be a monster. She ran away. Three days later she was back: her father, her uncles, the priest from the village.”

“And you killed them all.”

Carmilla threw her arms up in agitation. “Some of them. At least. It's... so hard to remember. When the howling and the hunting starts... I never knew who drained Ell.”

“Your mother, don't you think?”

“Maybe. I hope so. But it might have been me, for all I know. If I'd just – if it hadn't gone on. If I'd sent her away before we got too close, she'd have survived.” Her eyes shone in the lantern light.

Laura took her by the shoulder. “So do something now. You didn't do it last time and you've spent three hundred years regretting it. Do it now.”

“God damn it.” Carmilla looked at her feet, at Laura's face, at her own feet again. “God damn it. What do you expect me to do?”

“Fight.” Laura marched out of the front door and stood over the black valley. Her hair caught and she turned back to see Carmilla watching her, balancing on the edge of decision. There was something in her eyes besides the tears. “Do I look like her?”

Carmilla came forward, hushed. “A little. I suppose. To be honest, I'm not sure I remember all that well now.”

There was silence at the threshold of the house. Above them, the stars waited patiently.

“All right. Fine. Suppose we do this.” Carmilla sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “How do we find her before Mother and Mattie? I don't imagine you've got signal on that phone of yours?”

Laura shook her head. Her mind had been turning over. “It's time for brains. They looked like they were panicking, your mother and sister. Bera Mawr and Llwytmor - peak names, right? Are those the edges of your territory? Then they're most concerned she doesn't escape. They're not trying to find her _quickly_ , they're trying to find her _reliably_. Which gives us a chance.”

The stars above her on the steps of the house were clear and she looked up for inspiration. “ _Aurochs horn_ , Lilita said. People used to blow one as part of a ceremony? Right. But they're extinct. So... where did Danny get it? Cave?” Carmilla shook her head and Laura kicked at the ground in frustration before she understood. “Rhymes with grave. Danny's gone tomb raiding. Carm, we need to take a tour of the barrows.”

A small smile appeared on the girl's face. “Well, well. Look at you. Laura Hollis, detective.”

“Shut up.” She grinned all the same. “How do we get there quickly?”

Carmilla slid her arm around Laura's waist. “Hold on tight, cupcake.” She raised her cloak.

Laura clamped her arm round Carmilla's shoulder, underneath the cloak so that the cape floated free. She closed her eyes and hung on. Carmilla twisted, threw the folds of the cloak around them, and the billowing folds caught the edge of the wind.

It was impossible to understand what was happening to her. It would have been impossible in the daylight. There was cold, and currents of air coming at her from every angle. Carmilla's hair was in her face and Laura caught her scent. But they changed direction and orientation seemingly every second, and she pressed her face into the crook of Carmilla's neck to hide from the chaos of wind and wet air. Mist dragged itself through the gap between them and she understood they rode the clouds.

There was ground underfoot for a moment, or half a moment, before she found herself folded back behind the wind again and dragged forward. A snapping sound, like a kite catching or a cloak flicking out. Moors and rocks and bogs and barrows. She staggered, no strength in her knees, when Carmilla let her go.

“The barrows,” she said.

They were in pitch black. Underfoot was ooze and the heavy smell of peat. Laura hunted around for her phone.

“Who's there?” The challenge came out of the dark. Carmilla disappeared from her side and Laura's night vision, ruined by the screen light, saw only a a vague, enormous blur of threat. She raised the glowing screen of her phone and shrank back. 

Danny was squinting in the direct light and raising her hand to her face. She was pale, smudged with dirt everywhere. Her trousers were soaked and her t shirt ripped and mud stained. There was a network of cuts on her hands that held a great horn bound with tarnished metal.

Laura sprang forward and wrapped her arms around her. Danny wavered under the shock, but dropped the horn and held on tightly. 

“I thought you’d be dead,” she whispered in Laura’s ear.

“I thought you were.” She touched Danny’s cheek. “You’re cold.”

“Yeah, well. I met Carmilla’s sister. She really did a number on me.”

“You’re lucky,” said Carmilla, coming forward into the light. Danny raised her fists and pushed Laura behind her. “Oh relax, Red. How do you think Laura got here? You’re lucky Mattie didn’t finish you off, is all. How are you coping with it?”

“Well. I can hear the dead speaking, which is really not a comfortable place to be in. And-” she took Laura’s hand and pressed it against her chest.

Laura felt herself flush but embarrassment was replaced by a shocked realization. “Your heart. It’s not- no wait, there was one… how many?”

“Four beats a minute,” said Danny. “As I can count it. It’s been getting worse.”

“Oh God Danny, I- wait. You can hear the _dead_ speaking?”

She shrugged. “I guess. Either that or I'm having some startlingly accurate hallucinations.” She indicated the horn. “They're kind of repetitive to be honest. Any ideas, cold girl?” This last was addressed to Carmilla.

“It's new to me. We don't leave a lot alive, to be honest. Either we let them go after a little snack, or we go all the way. Third base isn't really my game,” she smirked and Laura found herself absurdly blushing.

“Okay,” said Laura. “Okay. Right. So we were going to flee, but – it's getting worse. You're inches from death. Oh, crap.” She clung to Danny's side, drawing none of the normal warmth. “Carmilla? You restored me at the dance.”

Carmilla shifted uneasily. “Sort of. You weren't all that far gone really, you were just getting drowsy and dull-eyed. Big Red here would probably be pronounced in a coma if it weren't for the amusing unpredictability of soul-stealing. She needs a lot.”

“Do you have enough?” Laura felt the fear beginning to quaver in her voice.

“Enough to restore her? Probably. Enough to fly us to Aber Falls before my mother catches us? Probably. Not enough to do both.” She shook her head. “No point coming back to life just to die again.”

Danny sighed and rolled her eyes. “So you're opting to be a useless soul-sucking monster. Great. Next option: How do we kill your mother?” 

Carmilla shrugged. “You really think it's that easy? If it's even possible, it's never been done.”

“Well neither has this, apparently.” Danny waved at the night and Laura took a while to understand she was waving in the direction of the ghostly voices only she could hear.

She hefted the horn from the ground. It was as long as her arm. “Where did you even find this?” she asked.

“Oh, I robbed a grave. Well, not really robbed – I think he was kind of offering.” Danny threw up her hands. “And I'm aware how that sounds. He wasn't objecting, put it that way. Surprising amount of space in one of these things. Cosy, too, if you don't mind aeons-old air.” She stamped her foot on the edge of the nearest barrow familiarly. 

Laura felt the spark of an idea. “Oh, crapsticks,” she said. “That might work.”

“Laura?”

She drew a breath. “Okay. I think I have a plan. Danny, don't get mad, but I'm going to ask Carmilla to kiss you. Maybe kiss you a couple of times.”

* * *

She knelt on the ground over Danny's body and wept. Carmilla had melted back into the night and left her alone. It lasted forever, kneeling and waiting and trying to guess which gust was the arrival of her hunter.

“Oh, dear. Did she not make it?” The voice from behind her was low and sarcastic. She scrabbled backwards and rose chaotically to her feet. Lilita emerged.

“Such a pity. She's a real gem.” Lilita dropped smoothly and pressed a hand to Danny's throat, and then to her chest. “No heartbeat. No breath. Such cold flesh. Were you remembering it in happier times, little one? Really quite lovely, this one...”

“Carmilla,” choked Laura. Her tears were filling up her throat. “She said she would save me, but she- she killed her.”

“Spared you, I see. Well, little Kitty was always sentimental.” Lilita advanced and Laura slumped onto the turf with her back to the open barrow. Lilita towered above her.

“And that’s where your little friend found her tin whistle,” she said, nodding to the aurochs horn lying beside Danny's apparently dead body. “It won’t do you any good. Yes, it was alarming to hear. But mere association of sounds. They kept us locked up in two acres of sodden moorland with the stones, and that took _years_ to get right. Blowing their little horns every year to remember their triumph. Well, they’re all dead now and I’m still here.” She leaned over and Laura scuttled backwards.

“Nowhere to run,” she purred.

Laura had her hands around the rough and muddy edges of the hole. There were stones on the inside, the internal walls of the grave. There was nowhere else to run and she could see the creature's triumphant knowledge in her face. Grasping the stones, she threw herself backwards into the barrow. Outside, Lilita laughed.

There was nothing to see by. She scrabbled on the floor, pushing herself further back. Under her hands were the long hard shapes of bones sunk into the earth. With nausea, she understood that the sharp thing under her palm was the face of a skull. Something light and tickly landed on her neck and she brushed away the burrowing beetle.

Lilita followed her in, nails sinking into the packed earth of the floor as she crawled into the chamber. Laura scuttled to the back wall. 

There was a blustering from outside, and footsteps. From up above her, the sounds of grinding and tearing penetrated through the soil. Danny cried out, her voice cutting clearly through the earth, sustained by everything Carmilla could pour back into her. There was a crashing and, though Laura had thought it was as dark as it could get, it got darker. Lilita hissed and swivelled, snake-like, and then there was a slapping as Danny sealed the entrance to the barrow again.

Lilita shrieked and turned. Her hands found Laura’s neck and cheeks and she grasped and pulled with her long fingers, diving for Laura's mouth with her own. Laura felt herself submerging in the panic but there was one spark of control inside her that told her to clamp her hands over her mouth and nose and hold her breath as long as she could.

Lilita’s mouth scurried around her face, her nails digging into Laura’s cheeks and scraping at her closed eyelids. Laura pressed her hands onto her face, bit her lip, resisted the screaming from her lungs. Lilita bit her fingers and cheeks in increasing desperation and the mouth that ran over Laura’s flesh seemed of unearthly form. 

Laura tried to roll over and curl into a ball with her face to the floor, but the creature’s pulling at her kept the two rocking together in a tug of war.

The world focused to a point of gasping mouths, plucking and scratching fingers, cold flesh trying to peel her apart. A finger dug into her eye, teeth bit and pulled at an uncovered piece of lip. Her body screamed for oxygen but she kept her hands tight over her mouth until everything became dark and still.

Danny waited for as long as she dared. The sounds from inside the barrow were muffled and indistinct, but there were a few seconds that really did seem silent. When she could bear it no longer she wrapped her arms around the stone blocking the entrance and pulled, not caring how the rock bruised her as it fell back on her. 

Inside the barrow lay Laura, curled into a ball with her hands over her mouth. She was unconscious, but Danny dragged her out by the feet and cleared her airway. Laura sucked in a breath instinctively as she returned to consciousness, but immediately bit down on it again and fought against the arms holding her.

“Hey,” Danny whispered. “Hey, it’s me. You did it.”

Laura doubled over in a coughing fit. “We did?”

“Yeah,” Danny said and hugged her. One of the watching shadows detached itself and flowed into the form of Carmilla. She knelt down next to Laura.

“Hey,” she said, and pressed a kiss to Laura’s forehead.

“Cool,” she muttered. “Let’s not do it again.”

“It was your idea,” Danny pointed out.

“Yeah. I know. How do you kill the wind? You trap it. Somewhere completely closed.” She let out a nervous giggle and addressed Carmilla. “And I thought your draughty house was just badly set windows. But you couldn’t have survived anywhere else.”

Carmilla pulled at a lock of her hair. “Not just a pretty face. You’ve got a beetle nesting in you, cutie.”

* * *

The waterfall looked less remote and wild in the late morning sunlight. The grass below was a brighter green, and the sandy path winding its way to civilization was flanked by content sheep. Laura stood with Danny and Carmilla on the summit next to the winding stair down.

“Mattie says goodbye,” Carmilla said. Danny raised an eyebrow at her and she snickered. “She also said she'd be up for a rematch if you fancy coming through again.”

“Tell her I will kill her if I see her again,” Danny said, and there was no irony in her simple statement.

“I think she'll appreciate that, actually.” Carmilla performed a short, stiff bow and turned from Danny to Laura. “Will you come back?” she asked. She was suddenly much smaller against the expanse of the sky. She looked lost in its folds.

“Maybe,” said Laura. “I don't know. I don't think it would be a good idea, actually. But maybe.” She fingered the hem of her top and couldn't meet Carmilla's eyes properly. 

Carmilla nodded as if she expected nothing more, and managed a small smile. “Well. We had a night to remember anyway.”

Laura blushed and Danny looked pointedly away.

“One last gift, cupcake.”

With a reassuring glance at Danny, Carmilla shuffled forward and kissed Laura on the lips. Her mouth was cool, but not the shocking cold of yesterday. Laura understood what was happening only when Carmilla fell back weak-kneed. Her black hair whipped back and forth as she shuddered, but she regained control and with one last turn threw her cloak around her. She folded herself behind the wind and out of sight. Danny started at the sudden disappearance. 

“What did she do?” she asked Laura, who was rubbing her lips thoughtfully.

“She breathed into me. Like last night.”

“Can't have been much of her left, the way she was looking.” Danny didn't look overly concerned. “I suppose she'll make it up before long on some poor walker.”

“Yeah.” Laura didn't appear to be listening to her. Her head was cocked and she followed something else with her ears. “I understand,” she muttered to herself.

Laura stood on the cliff overlooking the waterfall. The wind was at her back and she opened her jacket to fly loose from her shoulders. There was warmth and strength inside her, a great tide as of the deepest breath drawn into the bottom of her being. She wore the sky.

A kestrel hung in the air streams somewhere out towards the sea. She felt it, felt the tension in the rolling bar it swung upon. From the villages on the coast she caught the updraught. High above, the altitude winds came from the west, tacky with rain she could almost stretch out her fingers and touch.

She arose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And breathe out. Some fics are difficult to write, and others are _really_ difficult. This was one of the latter. But I think I've now got a better understanding of the difficulties involved in balancing two perspectives and plotlines, so that will help going forward as I try more ambitious pieces. Chapter titles are drawn from Geoffrey Hill's _Oraclau_.
> 
> Next up: the big post-Season 3 fic.


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